Once upon a time, children learned business basics by selling lemonade to sidewalk passers-by. But not anymore — and not in Bernalwood.
Today’s young entrepreneurs aim highter. They have an eye for style, a clear bead on the urban lifestyle, and a shrewd desire to move up the value-chain. So why sell cups of lemonade for a quarter when you can sell cups of homemade floral perfume for a buck instead?
Last weekend I noticed that Hattie, Lidia, and Bella have set up a self-serve perfume stand on Prospect Street (near Virginia) to sell their own, all-natural, locally produced Behali Perfume. What’s Behali Perfume, you ask? Quite honestly, I have no idea. I even looked it up on the Google, and came up with nothing.
Then it hit me: Behali Perfume must be the brand!!!
That’s right: Not only do these nano-entrepreneurs have their eye on the luxury market, they also understand the importance of establishing a distinctive identity in a crowded marketplace. Sure, the kids have some work to do in the typography, spelling, and logo departments… but check out the actual merchandise, which the girls arrayed on the sidewalk right below their sign:
As you can see, Behali Perfume is already thinking about package design. Wow. Wow. Wow.
If you’d like to support these kiddie capitalists, look for their products on a finer sidewalk near you. Watch out, Kiehl’s. Beware, Body Shop. The rest of us should probably get in now, while the price is still affordable… before the IPO, and before we find ouseselves in the awkward position of having to ask Hattie, Lidia, and/or Bella for a job.
UPDATE: Herr Doktor theorizes…
Behali = BElla, HAttie, LIdia… or at least that is my guess.
Woa. Further proof that those kids are pretty clever.
Driving home along Bernal Heights Boulevard tonight, the Cub Reporter asked me to pull over so she could look at the sunset. Then she unbuckled from the carseat, stepped out of the car, and her own tiny way, paused for a moment to appreciate the scenery.
If there are two things Bernalwood boasts in spades, it’s creative types and kids. One of the former, six-year hill resident Aaron Ximm — my husband! — officially became a capital-A author yesterday with the publication of his first book, Pat the Zombie: A Cruel (Adult) Spoof.
Which brings us to the kids. Pat the Zombie is a parody of one of the best-selling children’s classics of all time, Dorothy Kunhardt’s 1940 Pat the Bunny, a self-described “touch and feel” book whose interactive tactile features (such as soft, petable bunny “fur” and smellable flowers) were a novelty when it came out in 1940.
By contrast, Pat the Zombie — vividly illustrated by Kaveh Soofi and printed by the same Chinese house as the current edition of Pat the Bunny to accurately reproduce the original’s distinctive color palette, binding, and packaging — is a “touch and recoil” book that places the original against the backdrop of a zombie invasion that spares neither two-footed nor four-footed mammals.
The book’s graphic detail necessitates the cover’s clarification that the thing is for adults. Woe to the guardians of the toddler who stumbles on Zombie under the mattress!
Now, why would someone want to make a spoof like that? Particularly someone who is himself a parent? And the father of my children? To find out, I caught up with Ximm in the hallway outside our bathroom this morning.
Bernalwood:Why would you skewer such a beloved, benign children’s classic? Seriously. Aren’t there more appropriate topics for risqué parody, like the federal budget?
Aaron Ximm: It’s actually precisely the marriage of unshakable popularity and insipid content that made Pat the Bunny so plump a target. Some books are classics because they refuse to die. We just helped the process along a little.
How many million parents have gone glassy-eyed reading the curious imperative prose of the original to their offspring… over and over and over again? Pat the Zombie is for them. For us! We parents understand what it is to be half-alive.
Bernalwood:As anyone who was witness to Bernal Heights’ recent Easter egg hunt in Holly Park can attest, our neighborhood’s toddlers are a pretty savvy bunch. How would they fare during a real zombie invasion?
Ximm: Poorly, I’m sad to say. Poorly. Beating out little Hayden and Aiden, the twins from up the hill, for one last plastic egg is one thing. Possessing the focus, stamina, and wit required to fend off hordes of undead boxerdoodles and cockapoos is a whole ’nother thing.
Here in Bernalwood, our kids our coming up soft. Remember that commencement speech that was mis-attributed to Kurt Vonnegut? The one that said, “Live in Northern California once, but leave before it makes you soft.” Well, it’s true; California can make you soft. Our kids should know how to bow-hunt the undead with chert-tipped arrows and eucalyptus bows after their supply of regular ammo runs dry.
Bernalwood: Troubling allegations have emerged that, during the writing of Pat the Zombie, you “beta-tested” the book on our three-year-old daughter. Aren’t you concerned about the effects such content might have on a developing mind? And even if your own empathic response is lacking, what about the potential for serious marital discord if these charges are substantiated?
Ximm: I prefer to think of this not so much as an early and unwitting exposure to our own culture’s relentless preoccupation with violent imagery, but as an essential rite of passage — akin to the Chod traditions passed from Bon into Tibetan Buddhism, in which the practitioner sits with the dead and visualizes their own mortality and decomposition.
And anyway, baby, she’s seen worse playing with your iPad since you always leave SafeSearch off. Remember that time she watched the trailer for Human Centipede?
Aaron Ximm will be reading from and signing Pat the Zombie at Dark Carnival (3086 Claremont Ave, Berkeley) from 2 to 4 p.m. on Saturday, May 14.
Cortland Avenue offers delicious, gourmet food for omnivores, herbivores, and even canines. But until now, there’s been no place that caters to high-powered babies who need hearty, healthy food to go. You know the type: The kind of kid who will one day roll down the window of his/her Rolls-Royce at a traffic light to politely borrow your Grey Poupon.
Luckily, those discriminating kids won’t have to suffer much longer. If all goes according to plan, Big Dipper Baby Food will open at the artisanal food marketplace at 331 Cortland in late May. From the press release:
Local Mom Claire Hoyt knows how hard it can be to put a freshly made organic meal on the table every night for a small child — she’s been doing so for her son Forrest for the past 18 months. For hard working parents who want nothing but the best for their precious young ones, Big Dipper Baby Food is poised to serve fresh, organic, and delicious baby food from the Bernal Heights community in a convenient and affordable manner.
Making the transition from her career as an art director with a corporate food and house wares company, Hoyt is pursuing her lifelong dream of being a business owner. Her mother was a chef and always had her own successful restaurants and food businesses. When Hoyt became pregnant, she knew that in the next few years she would be making adjustments in her life to accomplish similar goals. When she came upon the community at 331 Cortland, she and the vendors (Paulie’s Pickling, Bernal Cutlery, Spice Hound) knew it was a perfect match for the neighborhood’s incubator space.
“I’m most excited to get started at 331 Cortland. Big Dipper has been a business plan I’ve had for over a year and having my own business is a lifelong dream,” said Hoyt.
The Bernal Heights community filled with young families is a perfect fit for a quick and healthy stop where Hoyt’s bulk creations of simple purees for infants’ first foods will be available. Purees will include items like Baked Fuji Apples with Sweet Potato, and Roasted Pears and Pineapple.
For babies graduating to the more textured and complex foods, Roasted Parsnips and Apple Mash with Cardamom; Braised Butternut Squash; and BrownRice Pudding with Mango and Coconut Milk; are sample seasonal offerings.
There will also be selections for toddlers featuring simple classics like Chicken Potpie with some “hidden” super foods. For instance the “cream” sauce in the potpie is a yummy cauliflower and leek puree, and the biscuit topping is made with sweet potato. By sneaking in those extra vegetable servings in a way in which kids crave, parents are also happy.
After a week of steady rain, the arrival of warm spring days released a lot of pent-up demand among the preschool crowd for some outdoor recreation. As temperatures hovered around 75 yesterday afternoon, the playground at Precita Park was jumping. There were toddlers galore, hip mamas and dads with tattoos and piercings, and a gaggle of bigger kids racing their bicycles around the perimeter sidewalk. All in all, an idyllic urban scene.
Badassitude comes in many forms, and apparently it starts at a very young age. Molly Samuel, Bernalwood’s own naturalist-in-residence, snapped this pic of a very badass tricycle parked in front of Liberty Cafe. Boys and girls, this is how we roll!
We don’t have a dog. But we do have a doggie kite.
And since it was such a lovely weekend, my 3 year-old and I decided to take our doggie kite up to Bernal Heights Park, to go flying with all the real dogs that were also enjoying the nice weather on the hill.
At first my daughter expected the local canines to love her kite — doggies should love a doggie, right? — but she quickly realized the more complicated truth: “The dogs think our kite is weird,” she said.
Did you notice that small blue sign across the street from the monster Lowe’s?
With luck, 2011 might be the year that our ratty-ass Bayshore Boulevard begins to clean up its act. Word on the street is that American Gymnastics Club plans to open a new facility at 390 Bayshore. (Let’s show ’em some of that Bernal love!) We have it on good sources that American Gymnastics is the best gymnastics school for kids in the city, from preschoolers on up. If they’re successful over here, maybe House of Air or Planet Granite will follow — and put some of those big, underused industrial building to better use.
Image: Inside the new American Gymnastics facility. Photo by American Gymnastics
Bernalwood 